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Supporters rally to Rachel Kyte after criticism of appointment over link to investment firm Quadrature Capital

The UK’s new climate envoy will retain her role on the board of a charity whose founders made a multimillion-pound donation to the Labour party and have investments in fossil fuels, the Guardian has learned.

Rachel Kyte, the former World Bank climate chief who was announced as the UK’s special representative on climate this week, is on the climate advisory board of Quadrature Climate Foundation, a charity set up by the founders of the Quadrature Capital investment company.

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An ongoing build-up of V25 California Carbon Allowance (CCA) holdings comes at the expense of V24s, while RGGI traders reduce exposure as allowance prices in the secondary market decline from summer peaks, according to this week's data released Friday from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The US Department of Energy (DOE) plans to fund up to $1.3 billion in carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects, according to a Notice of Intent (NOI) issued on Friday.

Industry opposition to Oregon’s proposed Climate Protection Program (CPP) remained muffled amid strong voices of support for the scheme, although the state’s Environmental Quality Commission (EQC) continues to explore potential avenues for revisions as the programme regulator concluded its final discussions ahead of the rule proposal.

For months a huge iceberg blocked the path of hundreds of penguin chicks but somehow they survived.

Brazil's Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) recommendation to suspend REDD+ activities in the state of Amazonas has been temporarily halted by an oversight committee despite MPF objections.

The private sector is poised to take an increasingly important role in achieving global decarbonisation tasks, according to speakers at the New York edition of the World Climate Summit 2024 on Wednesday, in line with Climate Week NYC programming.

A bipartisan group of representatives in the US House of Representatives introduced legislation Friday that would enable the year-round sale of E15 fuels at retail gas stations across the nation.

Impending federal elections and investment enthusiasm for carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) are weighing on Canadian emissions trading systems, experts discussed during Climate Week NYC on Thursday.

California ARB’s proposed 15-day notice for its Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) draft rules issued last month disproportionately restricts or constrains market access, a webinar heard Thursday, with expectations for credit prices based on potential adjustments to the regulator's highly anticipated second 15-day notice package.

More than 16 million people under heat alerts on Friday, with Las Vegas on 102nd day of temperatures above 100F

Brutal heat continues to plague the south-west US, with excessive heat alerts lingering long into September as parts of the region set grim new records for deaths connected to the sweltering temperatures.

Autumn has offered little reprieve for cities that have already spent months mired in triple-digit temperatures. This week, Las Vegas, Nevada; Phoenix, Arizona; and Palm Springs, California, are all grappling with severe weather, with highs that have pushed over 100F (38C). More than 16 million people in the US were under heat alerts on Friday, according to the National Weather Service, mostly clustered in the southern tips of Nevada, Arizona and California.

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A buyers’ club for jurisdictional REDD (J-REDD) credits announced a R$1 billion ($180 million) offtake agreement with a Brazilian state at Climate Week NYC despite its government’s ongoing bias toward mining and agribusiness, Indigenous leaders have said.

The European Commission will apply a 25% cap on sourcing electrolyser stacks from China in the next auction of its Hydrogen Bank, but local content requirements remain controversial, participants heard at the EU's cleantech summit this week.

Iceland-based International Carbon Registry (ICR) is about to launch consultations for its biodiversity credit framework, planning to onboard 10 pilot projects within a couple of months, the initiative's chief scientist told Carbon Pulse.

Record floods propel aggressive Mozambique tilapia throughout Mary River, compromising efforts to save ancient fish and endangered turtles

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Record floods have propelled an aggressive invasive fish species across a south-east Queensland river catchment, compromising efforts to save endangered and ancient fishes and turtles.

The Moonaboola (Mary) river catchment is home to several threatened species, including the Mary River turtle, the white-throated snapping turtle (known for breathing through its bottom), the Mary River cod and the Australian lungfish, which has survived for 150m years and is considered a living fossil.

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Norway on Friday released its nature action plan ahead of next month’s COP16, but drew ire from environmentalists as it stopped far short of making national commitments aligned with the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

A global maker of construction materials would like the EU to scrap a regulation that will only allow sustainably sourced CO2 in the production of e-fuels after 2041, saying it will constrain the ability to decarbonise maritime and aviation.

Domesticated creatures feature heavily in contemporary contributions to Guardian column compared to diaries of 1920s

In the early 1920s, the British countryside was a place where blackbirds sang, rabbits scurried and the summer skies were animated by swallows and house martins. A century on, blackbirds still sing and ancient oaks stand proud but the landscape is dominated by sheep, cows and dogs – according to Guardian country diarists.

A study of the most-featured species in the Country Diary column from 2021-24 and a century earlier reveals a surprising dominance of domesticated creatures in the mind’s eye of the contemporary contributors.

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Phoebe Plummer, 23, receives two-year prison term while Anna Holland, 22, given 20-month sentence over incident

Two Just Stop Oil activists have been jailed for throwing tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers after one of them told a judge she would “accept whatever sentences I receive with a smile”.

Phoebe Plummer, 23, was sentenced to two years in prison for causing an estimated £10,000 worth of damage to the artwork’s frame at the National Gallery in London in 2022. Her codefendant, Anna Holland, 22, received 20 months for the same offence, but will serve only half in custody.

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Governments face a complex task in setting the price of ITMOs while still staying on track to meet their own climate goals, according to two NGOs, which have teamed up to release a “Ministry Playbook” guide to selling the international carbon credits.